Return to David's theory of evolution and theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, August 07, 2023, 12:41 (472 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Again, you have God acting in self-interest. Find a God like that in any discussion of the theism of God's personality.

dhw: Then you had better call me a revolutionary philosopher of religion. Now please tell me why a God who according to you enjoys creating and is interested in his creations cannot possibly act out of the desire to enjoy creating things he will find interesting.

DAVID: Humans act to produce enjoyment for themselves. My God does not need self-enjoyment from His creations.
And later:
He creates without a smidgen of self-interest or self-entertainment.

Why do you keep inserting the word “need”, which suggests some sort of inadequacy? If you enjoy a good meal, a Beethoven symphony, or a nice chat with your wife, and I enjoy writing a poem or play, does that mean we’re “needy”? It’s you who said he enjoys creating. How can he possibly enjoy it without feeling any enjoyment himself? And why would he create if he didn't want to do so?

Later:

dhw: […] this reference concerned the fact that the unexpected is always more interesting that the expected […] – hence the argument for an unpredictable free-for-all evolution, which would be far more interesting for God than a predictable Garden of Eden which you said would bore him.

DAVID: It would bore you also.

Nice to see you agreeing with yourself that he would be bored, like me. Next perhaps you will find yourself agreeing that he might logically have designed the “challenge” in order to prevent himself from being bored, though, according to you, he would not relieve his boredom out of the desire to relieve his boredom.

DAVID: Are the designs you see brilliant or not?

dhw: Yes, every cell and cell community is a brilliant design, and I am the one who rejects your depiction of him as a messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer, because I do not for one second believe that if he had one purpose (us and our food) as you claim, he would messily, cumbersomely and inefficiently design 99 species out of 100 that were irrelevant to that purpose! So please stop dodging your own irrational theory and self-contradiction!

DAVID: Evolution is known history. I say God did it by design, and it is a long drawn out slow process.

No problem, if we assume God exists.

DAVID: Culling out 99.9% is not irrelevant to the process or its end point.

Your usual dodge. The daft part of your theory is making your all-knowing God design the 99.9% in the first place, when you tell us he knew they were irrelevant to what you insist was his one and only purpose.

dhw: Your all-powerful, all-knowing God can’t control the evil he knew he was creating, but you think you can solve the problem of how an all-good God can create evil by telling us that there is more good than evil. A great way to solve a problem – by pretending it isn’t a problem.

DAVID: It is a problem but the proportionality of good far outweighs the bad. Would you give up free will to wipe out evil people?

You never stop dodging. The proportion, even if what you say is true, is totally irrelevant to the question of your God’s nature, and so is the question of what I would like your God to do! Theodicy asks how an all-good God can create evil. Your answer is that we shouldn’t bother to think about the evil.

DAVID: A side effect of evil is that it makes life more challenging is true.

dhw: Are you saying your all-good God actually wanted the evil, so that he could make life tougher for us and our fellow creatures? If so, why do you think he wanted to do that?

DAVID: Would you prefer to live in the Garden of Eden? God gave us the brain to handle the challenges He expected.

Of course I would prefer to live in a Garden of Eden, where people did not have to suffer the dreadful consequences of war, disease, flood, famine, murder, rape etc., which your all-knowing God apparently foresaw when he designed all the agents of such suffering. I’m incredibly lucky to have lived a life largely untouched by these evils, and have been free to enjoy all the good wonders. Now please answer the above question: why do you think he wanted to present us with a challenge?